One Mom's Experience
I had bilateral lasik surgery in March 1998, an enhancement in my left eye in June 1998 and a second enhancement {topo-link}on my left eye in December 1998.

Lasik surgery has reduced my vision, cost me my job, my financial security and seriously affected my life.

I can only drive during the day and will only venture out to the local shopping centre. When you can’t read traffic signs, traffic lights are a blur and the single white line has two other lines coming off it, I believe you are a danger to yourself and everyone else on the road. Driving to the local shop causes me major stress

I therefore rely on friends or family to drive me to essential appointments.

I have changed from a happy, confident full time worker, wife and Mum with a varied and busy life to a bored and frustrated recluse.

I am angry that I had the surgery and Laser ‘corrective’ surgery is nothing but a fairytale. There are so many people out there who have had the surgery and are not happy and are doing nothing about it.

Every minute of the day is a constant reminder of the mistake that I made.

When I went for my first consultation with the Laser Surgeon he did a series of tests on me and said I was a “good candidate” for the surgery. I questioned his experience and asked if he had operated on many people with similar eye refractions to mine. He said, “ yes, and even much higher than my +4.50 & +5.75.”

He said, “These patients were all happy with their results.” I now know that is not the case and that I was one of the highest refractions he had done and that my surgery was experimental and was high risk. He neglected to inform me of the risks of laser surgery and that the higher the refraction the much more likely you were of having serious complications. He said that the few enhancements that he had done were to fine tune small problems that may occur. However that was very unlikely.

Even when he did my enhancement {due to a major problem} he reassured me that everything would be fine.

All that this enhancement did for me was to slightly decrease my surgically induced astigmatism, which in time regressed. My sight showed no improvement. After this surgery I developed epithelial growths. Eventhough I was continually complaining of irritation, dryness and discomfort he did not tell me about these. I found out through my optometrist who had received a letter from the surgeon saying that he felt that I had been through enough stress and that he had not informed me of this complication. Another complication of laser surgery with which I had no knowledge.

I was not given enough information about the surgery and the associated risks and I was told that both my eyes had to be operated on at the same time. This is for the surgeons benefit not the patient. I was told that if my eyes were done separately that my eyes and brain would not be able to cope with the vast difference in refractions.

After all this deception I lost confidence with my surgeon and searched for another surgeon for advice.

I saw several laser and corneal specialists and was advised who was the best to deal with my problems. Their laser was the best for my correction. I was informed that I would have to wait for at least 6 months and a stable refraction before anything could be done. My eyes were damaged from the previous surgery however they felt that they could improve on what vision I had.

The surgery on my left eye took place in December 1998. I had a topo-link enhancement. My topography was sent to Germany and the programmers did the settings for the laser. This was supposably my best possible chance of correcting my problems. My surgery was not a success. My irregular astigmatism was increased to the stage that contacts and lenses are ineffective.

I have not been given any explaination as to why this happened, however my surgeon does at least admit that something drastic has gone wrong and is trying to find answers to my problems. I now have poor vision in my right eye, however corrective lenses help. I have ghosting, halos and glare problems with both eyes, however the left eye is a disaster with the double vision causing my overall vision with both eyes to be blurred.

My eyes feel like they are working against each other. I manage for sort periods of time to do some close up work but continually suffer from eye strain. I live daily with sore, tired, dry eyes and have non-functional distance vision. I have been told that my only hope now is a new procedure called a wave-front custom ablation. This procedure is experimental at present and there are no guarantees that I shall even be suitable for the procedure. I also wonder if I have enough cornea left to operate on. My eyes have been permanately damaged by laser surgery. I live with constant pain and irritation and my lifestyle has completely changed. I believed all the advertising, “You can throw away your glasses”.

I couldn’t wait to be able to swim, play sport and do all sorts of recreational activities without the restrictions I previously had with my glasses. Now I can’t do any of these things, I can’t see with or without my glasses. I can’t even drive to do any recreational activity. I have had to forfeit all the activities that gave me pleasure in the past. One of the sad parts about this, my children have also missed out because their mother can no longer drive them.

I believe that laser can work for some however the surgeons are all too quick to take on cases where the risks are too high. The risks certainly outweigh the benefits. A lot more research and improved, reliable technology is necessary before people with my refraction should be operated on. The advertised statistics are not accurate. In other countries the surgeons would not contemplate operating on hyperoptic eyes with my refraction.

I was an experiment and nobody told me.